Ohio metallers SKELETONWITCH will enter GodCity Studios in Salem, Massachusetts in April with producer Kurt Ballou (CONVERGE, KVELERTAK, BLACK BREATH) to begin recording their fifth album for a late 2013 release via Prosthetic Records.

Commented the band: "First off, thanks to everyone who supported SKELETONWITCH during this past year. We did some serious gigging in 2012, and your support on the road and of 'Forever Abomination' was overwhelming. We would be nowhere without you.

"It's not just idle hands that do the devil's work — we're already deep in the process of writing a new record, which is shaping up to be quite an epic slab of metal, if we may say so ourselves."

SKELETONWITCH recently completed the "U.S. Abomination" headlining tour with support from MUTILATION RITES and HAVOK.

The follow-up to 2009's "Breathing The Fire", "Forever Abomination" was recorded at a Los Angeles studio with producer Matt Hyde (SLAYER, MACHINE HEAD, KREATOR). The effort included the track "The Infernal Resurrection", the demo version of which appears as the B-side on the final seven-inch of a limited-edition vinyl trilogy. This marked SKELETONWITCH's first recording with the group's new drummer, former DEMIRICOUS skin-pounder Dustin Boltjes.

The vinyl reissues of the SKELETONWITCH's breakthrough releases "Breathing The Fire" and "Beyond The Permafrost" are now available from the Prosthetic store. Both are available in three variants — splatter, half-and-half and 180-gram black wax — and feature gatefold Stoughton "tip-on" record jackets. The black vinyl versions of both albums were made available in select retail stores in April 2012.

I absolutely loved Beyond the Permafrost, although I'm not the biggest fan of thrash. Never checked out Forever Abomination but I may have an incentive to do so just to see how their upcoming album fairs with FA. Very excited.

Skeletonwitch are a very consistent and hard-working bunch of dudes. I'm willing to wager that the new album will be at least above average. Can't wait to hear it, and see them live in support of it. They deserve all the success they get.

The last album had a much more profound black metal influence than Breathing the Fire, which was their most "normal" album to date. For that reason I loved it and hope they'll keep with their tradition of never making the same album twice.

I can't, for the life of me, get into this stuff. I got a song from some sampler...didn't dig it. Heard "Reduced to the Failure of Prayer" a million times on Liquid Metal...not a damn thing. Are their earlier releases something I should look into? Or are those albums in the same template as their recent album?

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ANationalAcrobat wrote:

Viking metal and pagan metal aren't legitimate sub-genres. People need to get over themselves and admit that.

I can't, for the life of me, get into this stuff. I got a song from some sampler...didn't dig it. Heard "Reduced to the Failure of Prayer" a million times on Liquid Metal...not a damn thing. Are their earlier releases something I should look into? Or are those albums in the same template as their recent album?

If my experience can be generalised from at all on the matter, Skeletonwitch are one of those bands which you listen to on and off for a long time, quite tentatively, then one day you just wake up and go "Right, I'm going to listen to Skeletonwitch today", and from there on you're sorted.

In terms of style the three albums which are in print are consistent, but manage to be fresh each time - I don't know if there is any one album which would appeal to you if the others don't though.

I agree with most of the people here in that Beyond the Permafrost is their best album, but they still have yet to make a bad one. This one sure won't disappoint, especially with Kurt Ballou handling the production.

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hippiedrow, on the new Skeletonwitch album wrote:

I remember back when Beyond the Permafrost came out. I was eating a lot of Asian wok-style foods, so now whenever Skeletonwitch is mentioned I get the pleasant taste of noodles in my mouth.

A band that I'll definitely take more of the "same" from, in spite of no two albums really being carbon copies of each other. They've had a different producer and engineering team for each album thus far, which I'm sure has a lot to do with that. It's an approach I'd like to see happen more often by bands that have a set style that they're comfortable and content with but need those outside eyes and ears and therefore don't self-produce. Even to this point they've worked with some esteemed names: Scott Hull, Jack Endino, Matt Hyde, Corey Smoot, etc. so Kurt Ballou is an excellent choice and yet, not a surprising one. Hopefully they do stick with Andrei Bouzikov providing the artwork. His stuff's been some of the most refreshing I've seen in a long time.

Got excited for the Indianapolis date since they are one of those rare national bands that actually come around here regularly, but then got sad when I saw that Ghost wouldn't be joining them here. Eh, may still go if the bill is decent. Last year's show with The Gates Of Slumber and Chrome Waves was fucking stellar.